New Book on Aquinas and Evolution

[Chris_Falter]

@Rich_Hampton

Well, here’s one tiny example of something which I believe Aquinas would want to revise, “ Aquinas follows Aristotle in believing that heavenly bodies are not subject to decay because they are a different sort of material thing than other material things. Aquinas and Aristotle, first of all, believe that the heavenly bodies, the spheres, are eternal because it is a matter of observation that they move around the earth in uniform circular motion without any variation over many years.”

Excellent example, Rich! Thomas’ medieval understandings (or perhaps we should say misunderstandings) of astrophysics led to fundamental errors in classifying forms–in this case, what is eternal and without variation vs. what is temporal and variable.

I would add this: we should expect Aquinas to be approximately as relevant to modern biology as he is to modern astrophysics.

Best,
Chris